This summary is from Dr. Pielke at the University of Colorado in his words. I’ll have my own post on some detail not covered here, with links to the SI – data code, etc we are preparing in a day or two. Some may ask why I am not lead author. That was my choice, because the strength is in the statistical analysis, and I wanted it clear that the paper is about that joint work and not about any one person’s efforts. – Anthony
UPDATE: Also, two other posts, by co-author Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon that are must reads are:
The surfacestations paper – statistics primer
Something for Everyone: Fall et al. 2011
Guest post by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
Our paper
Fall, S., A. Watts, J. Nielsen-Gammon, E. Jones, D. Niyogi, J. Christy, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2011: Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., in press. Copyright (2011) American Geophysical Union.
has been accepted and is now in press. Below I have presented a summary of the study and its major messages from my perspective. While the other authors of our paper have read and provided input on the information given below, the views presented below are mine. I will be posting on the history of my involvement on this subject in a follow-up post in a few days.
Volunteer Study Finds Station Siting Problems Affect USA Multi-Decadal Surface Temperature Measurements
We found that the poor siting of a significant number of climate reference sites (USHCN) used by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to monitor surface air temperatures has led to inaccuracies and larger uncertainties in the analysis of multi-decadal surface temperature anomalies and trends than assumed by NCDC.
NCDC does recognize that this is an issue. In the past decade, NCDC has established a new network, the Climate Reference Network (CRN), to measure surface air temperatures within the United States going forward. According to our co-author Anthony Watts:
“The fact that NOAA itself has created a new replacement network, the Climate Reference Network, suggests that even they have realized the importance of addressing the uncertainty problem.”
The consequences of this poor siting on their analyses of multi-decadal trends and anomalies up to the present, however, has not been adequately examined by NCDC.
We are seeking to remedy this shortcoming in our study.
The placement of the USHCN sites can certainly affect the temperatures being recorded—both an area of asphalt (which is warmer than the surroundings on a sunny day or irrigated lawns (which is cooler than surrounding bare soil on a sunny day) situated near a station, for example, will influence the recorded surface air temperatures.
NOAA has adopted siting criteria for their climate reference stations: CRN 1 stations are the least likely to being influenced by nearby sources of heat or cooling, while CRN 5 stations are the most likely to be contaminated by local effects. These local effects include nearby buildings, parking lots, water treatment plants irrigated lawns, and other such local land features.
To determine how the USHCN stations satisfied the CRN siting criteria and also whether the station siting affected temperature trend characteristics, Anthony Watts of IntelliWeather set up the Surface Stations project in 2007. More than 650 volunteers nationwide visually inspected (and rated) 1007 of the 1221 USHCN stations. The volunteers wrote reports on the surroundings of each station and supplemented these reports with photographs. Further analysis by Watts and his team used satellite and aerial map measurements to confirm distances between the weather station sensors and nearby land features.
The Surface Stations project is truly an outstanding citizen scientist project under the leadership of Anthony Watts! The project did not involve federal funding. Indeed, these citizen scientists paid for the page charges for our article. This is truly an outstanding group of committed volunteers who donated their time and effort on this project!
Analyzing the collected data, as reported in our paper, we found that only 80 of the 1007 sites surveyed in the 1221 station network met the criteria of CRN 1 or CRN 2 sites – those deemed appropriate for measuring climate trends by NCDC. Of the remaining, 67 sites attained a CRN 5 rating – the worst rating. While the 30-year and 115-year trends, and all groups of stations, showed warming trends over those periods, we found that the minimum temperature trends appeared to be overestimated and the maximum warming trends underestimated at the poorer sites.
This discrepancy matters quite a bit. Wintertime minimum temperatures help determine plant hardiness, for example, and summertime minimum temperatures are very important for heat wave mortality. The use of temperature trends from poorly sited climate stations, therefore, introduces an uncertainly in our ability to quantify these key climate metrics.
While all groups of stations showed warming trends over those periods, there is evidence to suggest a higher level of uncertainty in the trends since it was found, as one example, that according to the best-sited stations, the 24 hour temperature range in the lower 48 states has no century-scale trend, while the poorly sited locations have a significantly smaller diurnal temperature range. This raises a red flag to avoid poorly sited locations since clearly station measurement siting affects the quality of the surface temperature measurements.
The inaccuracies in the maximum and minimum temperature trends do matter also in the quantification of global warming. The inaccuracies of measurements from poorly sited stations are merged with the well sited stations in order to provide area average estimates of surface temperature trends including a global average. In the United States, where this study was conducted, the biases in maximum and minimum temperature trends are fortuitously of opposite sign, but about the same magnitude, so they cancel each other and the mean trends are not much different from siting class to siting class. This finding needs to be assessed globally to see if this also true more generally.
However, even the best-sited stations may not be accurately measuring trends in temperature or, more generally, in trends in heat content of the air which includes the effect of water vapor trends (which is the more correct metric to assess surface air warming and cooling; see). Also, most of the best sited stations are at airports, which are subject to encroaching urbanization, and/or use a different set of automated equipment designed for aviation meteorology, but not climate monitoring. Additionally, the NCDC corrections for station moves or other inhomogeneities use data from poorly-sited stations for determining adjustments to better-sited stations, thus muddling the cleaner climate data. We are looking at these issues for our follow-on paper.
However, we know from our study that the use of these poorly sited locations in constructing multi-decadal surface temperature trends and anomalies has introduced an uncertainty in our quantification of the magnitude of how much warming has occurred in the United States during the 20th and early 21st century.
One critical question that needs to be answered now is; does this uncertainty extend to the worldwide surface temperature record? In our paper
Montandon, L.M., S. Fall, R.A. Pielke Sr., and D. Niyogi, 2011: Distribution of landscape types in the Global Historical Climatology Network. Earth Interactions, 15:6, doi: 10.1175/2010EI371
we found that the global average surface temperature may be higher than what has been reported by NCDC and others as a result in the bias in the landscape area where the observing sites are situated. However, we were not able to look at the local siting issue that we have been able to study for the USA in our new paper.
Appendix- Summary of Trend Analysis Results
Temperature trend estimates do indeed vary according to site classification. Assuming trends from the better-sited stations (CRN 1 and CRN 2) are most accurate:
- Minimum temperature warming trends are overestimated at poorer sites
- Maximum temperature warming trends are underestimated at poorer sites
- Mean temperature trends are similar at poorer sites due to the contrasting biases of maximum and minimum trends
- The trend of the “diurnal temperature range” (the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures) is most strongly dependent on siting quality. For 1979-2008 for example, the magnitude of the linear trend in diurnal temperature range is over twice as large for CRN 1&2 (0.13ºC/decade) as for any of the other CRN classes. For the period 1895-2009, the adjusted CRN 1&2 diurnal temperature range trend is almost exactly zero, while the adjusted CRN 5 diurnal temperature range trend is about -0.5°C/century.
- Vose and Menne[2004, their Fig. 9] found that a 25-station national network of COOP stations, even if unadjusted and unstratified by siting quality, is sufficient to estimate 30-yr temperature trends to an accuracy of +/- 0.012°C/yr compared to the full COOP network. The statistically significant trend differences found here in the central and eastern United States for CRN 5 stations compared to CRN 1&2 stations, however, are as large (-0.013°C/yr for maximum temperatures, +0.011°C/yr for minimum temperatures) or larger (-0.023°C/yr for diurnal temperature range) than the uncertainty presented by Menne at al (2010).
More detailed results are found in the paper, including analyses for different periods, comparisons of raw and adjusted trends, and comparisons with an independent temperature data set.
Questions and Answers
Q: So is the United States getting warmer?
A: Yes in terms of the surface air temperature record. We looked at 30-year and 115-year trends, and all groups of stations showed warming trends over those periods.
Q: Has the warming rate been overestimated?
A: The minimum temperature rise appears to have been overestimated, but the maximum temperature rise appears to have been underestimated.
Q: Do the differing trend errors in maximum and minimum temperature matter?
A: They matter quite a bit. Wintertime minimum temperatures help determine plant hardiness, for example, and summertime minimum temperatures are very important for heat wave mortality. Moreover, maximum temperature trends are the better indicator of temperature changes in the rest of the atmosphere, since minimum temperature trends are much more a function of height near the ground and are of less value in diagnosing heat changes higher in the atmosphere; e.g see .
Q: What about mean temperature trends?
A: In the United States the biases in maximum and minimum temperature trends are about the same size, so they cancel each other and the mean trends are not much different from siting class to siting class. This finding needs to be assessed globally to see if this also true more generally.
However, even the best-sited stations may not be accurately measuring trends in temperature or, more generally, in trends in heat content of the air which includes the effect of water vapor trends. Also, most are at airports, are subject to encroaching urbanization, and use a different set of automated equipment. The corrections for station moves or other inhomogeneities use data from poorly-sited stations for determining adjustments to better-sited stations.
Q: What’s next?
A: We also plan to look specifically at the effects of instrument changes and land use issues, among other things. The Surface Stations volunteers have provided us with a superb dataset, and we want to learn as much about station quality from it as we can.
================================================================
UPDATE: Since some people seemed unable to divine the link upstream, the pre-print version of the paper, posted on Dr. Pielke’s website is available here:
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/r-3671.pdf
– Anthony
UPDATE2: Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist and co-author, weighs in with his post:
Something for Everyone: Fall et al. 2011
As you may have heard, the long-awaited peer-reviewed analysis of the results of the SurfaceStations.org project has finally been released. I can’t wait to see the dueling headlines. Some will argue that the take-home message should be: Poor Station Siting Strongly Effects Temperature Trend Measurements, and will laugh at the idea that we can say with sufficient accuracy what has happened to our climate. Others will argue that the take-home message should be: Poor Station Siting Has No Effect on Temperature Trend Measurements, and will laugh at all the effort expended on a null result. Both sides will find solid evidence for their points of view in the paper. How can that be? How can one paper support opposing conclusions?
…
Here, in brief, are the answers: The poorest sites tend to be warmer. The minimum temperatures are warming faster at poorer sites than at better sites. The maximum temperatures are warming slower at poorer sites than at better sites. The adjustments reduce the differences by about half. The two effects are roughly equal and opposite so the mean temperature is rising at about the same rate across sites of different quality while the diurnal temperature range shows the biggest difference across sites.
On the one hand, this seems to be confirmation of the quality of the temperature record. All types of sites show the same mean temperature trend, so there’s no change necessary to our estimates of observed historical temperature trends in the United States.
On the other hand, there are several warning flags raised by this study. First, station siting is indeed important for the maximum and minimum temperature measurements. Second, the adjustments are only partly correcting the temperature record. Third, since the adjustments use data from all surrounding stations, there’s the danger that the mean trends are dominated by data from the poorer stations. (Less than ten percent of the USHCN stations are sited well enough to be considered appropriate for climate trend measurements.) Finally, and perhaps most important, are we really so lucky that the rest of the world would also have its poorly-sited stations have erroneous maximum and minimum temperature trends that just happen to be equal and opposite to each other?
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I am just an occasional viewer of your web site. I am a conservative person that believes there is a little warming going on, but probably being over stated by the alarmists. This surface station project has been very interesting. Many times, you pointed out the badly sited stations with the implication that they were overstating temperatures. I had come to the belief that a significant portion of the increase in temperatures could have been from poor measuring sites. Now based on your summary of this analysis it appears that the bad siting has very little effect on the mean temperatures. Does this mean that the alarmists are more correct than I thought? I’m afraid they will use this study to claim the skeptics have just lost one of their arguments in trying to refute man made global warming. I think this will be viewed as a big win for them and their cause, but the results are what they are and we should respect people like you that give us honest information. Thank you.
REPLY: It is one way of analyzing the data, but it doesn’t take into account everything that we learned along the way. Peer review makes one stop at a certain point and stick with what you have then. What we learned was that the problem was more complex than we first thought. Look for a second paper. Science builds on levels of understanding. – Anthony
Smokey – you wrote:
“First you claimed that my view was based on Viking saga and paintings of ice fairs, etc., while disregarding the links in my previous comment. Then when I posted charts of the clearly rising temperature trend line from the LIA, you bizarrely claimed that it shows a cooling trend. ”
Since the global temperature we are currently experiencing is unprecedented in thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, they you could pick a starting point at any point in that time period and show a rising trend. The point is that there is a distinct warming phase which started around 1880, which was preceded by centuries of relative global stability. As for a ‘Little Ice Age’ – where is your temperature record to show this was a global rather than a regional phenomenon? There is no global instrumental record of course – so the only alternative is to use proxies such as bore holes, isotope ratios in ice bubbles, stalactites or others – all of which give ‘hockey stick’ shapes of course. I’m afraid that too many sceptics point to the Viking settlement of Greenland as ‘proof’ of both a medieval warm period and a Little Ice Age, without realising that is a very unreliable proxy indeed. Maybe you are not one of them, and discount such ‘evidence’ in which case I apologise.
On the other hand I note you say your graphic shows a steadily rising temperature change since the ‘end of the Little Ice Age’. Strangely it would seem from your graphic that the Little Ice Age ends at the precise moment when people start to measure temperature. Therefore according to you it ended in 1840 in Copenhagen; 1820 in Washington DC, New York and Minneapolis; 1760 in Geneva; 1740 in St Petersburg; 1730 in Berlin and 1660 in Central England. Funny that. How do you square a global ‘Little Ice Age” with such wide regional variation? Or perhaps you have discovered some hitherto unnoticed phenomenon, whereby temperature goes up as soon as anyone takes a thermometer to a new part of the globe?
Nice try, but I wouldn’t bother trying to get that past peer review if I was you… 😉
Hi Tony.
I’m impressed you have a website and have written articles where you express your opinion. Do you have anything you have submitted for peer review? The stuff about Dickens and Napoleon and so on is very entertaining, but I’m more interested in statistical analysis of data, rather than anecdotes and cherry picked records from single locations. Since Smokey can’t seem to make his mind up, and you seem to be something of a historian – perhaps you’d like to commit to a date for the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’? Incidentally much is made of the CET series – but I think you should show as much scepticism towards the early part of it as has been shown to the modern Surface Station record for the USA. For example – from Wiki:
“Data quality
Although best efforts have been made by Manley and subsequent researchers to quality control the series, there are data problems in the early years, with some non-instrumental data used. These problems account for the lower precision to which the early monthly means were quoted by Manley. Parker et al. (1992) [1] addressed this by not using data prior to 1772, since their daily series required more accurate data than did the original seies of monthly means; MBH98 only used data from 1730 onwards. Before 1722, instrumental records do not overlap and Manley used a non-instrumental series from Utrecht compiled by Labrijn (1945), to make the monthly central England temperature (CET) series complete. Between 1723 and the 1760s most observations were taken not from outside measurements but from indoor readings in unheated rooms, and thus are of little or no use.”
“Indoor readings in unheated rooms”?
Where would such a ‘station’ rank on Anthony’s scale of station quality do you think? Not to mention the fact that there is no possibilty of using a mean of stations so errors cancel each other out.
I’m sorry Tony, I’m really more interested in proper statistical analysis of data using scientific methods – I’ve browsed your website, but I don’t see where you’ve attempted to do this.
I also note that on your website you make the claim that the increase in temperature since 1880 is due to increased population. Now that is something I can agree with. However you then state with confidence that this is because of the influence of the Urban Heat Island Effect on surface stations. Now that Anthony has debunked such claims, will you be updating your website to correct this?
Hi Dean
Bit confused anout which points you are making here.
I think the temperature record is extremely flawed and can be used as nothing more than an indication of direction of temperatures. Due to the many inconsistencies in the methods of measuring we can not get closer than a 1 degree temperature error and in many cases rather more than that. It is nonsense for anyone including Hansen to parse such poor records to tenths of a degree and produce this as scientific evidence of anything.
I have also written about temperature readngs being taken in unheated rooms etc so there is no need to quote Wiki to me. I have also written about the way in which CET has been consructed so again this is all well known
Quite how you subject such poor quality data to a proper statistical analysis is something you could perhaps enlighten me on? Once we get to the 1980’s and digital automatic weather stations I suppose we can start to get some accuracy for individual locations but then we run into (some) siting problems.
That some data is highly corrupted by uhi is something that is evident from observations, that some is problematic because the site has become urbanised or moved is also problematic. This is something that Phil jones has attempted to unravel with various grants from the EU.
Rather than read Wiki why don’t you try out some Lamb-its mostly very interesting and doesn’t rely as heavily on theoretical computer analysis of suspect data to arrive at results as do much of the work that appears in papers.
tonyb
Tony – you said this:
“Due to the many inconsistencies in the methods of measuring we can not get closer than a 1 degree temperature error and in many cases rather more than that.”
Do you have any scientific evidence for your statement, or was that something you thought up yourself? Remembering of course that absolute temperature is unimportant when the matter in question is trend, then yes, it is entirely possible to make meaningful measurements of a fraction of a degree.
Could you please cite the scientific evidence on which you base your assertion?
You also made this extraordinary statement: “Quite how you subject such poor quality data to a proper statistical analysis is something you could perhaps enlighten me on?”
You seem to be unaware that the entire field of statistics was developed to deal with poor quality data, and to extract the underlying signals lying within it? Even the simple expedient of making repeated measurements and defining a mean will improve on raw data, and there are many more sophisticated methods which advance things further still. The very communications technology we are using at this moment depends on such methods, so you can hardly deny their effectiveness. Of course if you have one measurement made at one point in time in a situation where there is the likelihood of a systematic error, then statistics can’t help you – but then it was you that made a comparison between one such record from central England in 1659 and compared it to modern data.
Anthony’s paper is a comprehensive rebuttal of your claim that modern data is ‘corrupted by the UHI’ Tony. The fact that it merely replicates many previous such findings would make it unremarkable, if it were not for the fact that he has been the principle proponent of the hypothesis you are still clinging to.
Frankly I don’t see the relevance of the source of Phil Jones grant funding Tony. Perhaps you could explain why it matters here, and why you chose to mention it – perhaps I’m missing something?
It seems you don’t like works that “rely as heavily on theoretical computer analysis of suspect data to arrive at results as do much of the work that appears in papers.”
That’s a perfect description of what Anthony et al. have done in this peer reviewed work. Are you discounting it because it fits in that category.
Personally I’m sceptical of historical temperature reconstructions which seem to be based on an analysis of the the life and times of Charles Dickens. That’s perhaps because I’m sceptical by nature, and because I’m more interested in science than literature.
Dean Morrison is obviously in denial of basic facts. That puts him squarely in the TROLL category. Much of what he has posted so far is total nonsense. He either didn’t read the paper or ignores what is stated.
iDean
You said
“You seem to be unaware that the entire field of statistics was developed to deal with poor quality data, and to extract the underlying signals lying within it? Even the simple expedient of making repeated measurements and defining a mean will improve on raw data, and there are many more sophisticated methods which advance things further still.”
That is realy quite insulting. Of course if you take say 10 measurements of a single temperature point then there are ways of extracting a perfrectly meaningful result from it. However that wasn’t done was it? A SINGLE measurement was taken often at inconsistent times of day (or missed out altogether) using uncalibrated equipment and untrained observers and the night time temperature then either dreamt up or not used at all. We started to obtain some sort of consistency with the introduction of Stevenson screens and professional onservers but multiplying hundreds of highly dubiuous records a la Hansen to obtain a meaningful global average accurate to tenths of a degree back to 1880 is torturing the data to the nth degree.
Anomalies rely on accurate measurements as much as an actual reading if any sort of ‘scientific’ result is to be obtained.
We also have the complication that even today there are up to 30% of locations in the world cooling for a statistically meaningful period, so although the warming signal ( for whatever reason) overwhelms it the notion of a ‘global’ warming is untrue.
The relevance of Phil jones’ funding is that he was also unable to extract accurate information from the data. I am perfectly happy with computer analysis when it uses information that is accurate to begin with.
I think we are the only people left talking in an empty room as the party has moved elsewhere so hope to see you again on another thread.
All the best
tonyb
Dear Richard,
I’ll chose to ignore the gratuitous insult, and instead engage with what you’ve said.
Perhaps you could explain to me what you think are the pertinent facts that I’m in denial of?
Also, you say I haven’t read the paper – which I can in fact reassure you that I have. In fact you’ll see I quoted the concluding statement from the abstract in my first post here. However you say I have ‘ignored what is stated’. Perhaps you could quote to me the key passages you think I have ignored?
If you can do so I think we may be able to proceed on the basis of constructive dialogue, rather than the trading of insults.
Richard M says, regarding Dean Morrison:
“Much of what he has posted so far is total nonsense.”
Concur. His preposterous assertion that temperatures are higher today than for hundreds of thousands of years is flatly contradicted by the evidence from ice cores in both hemispheres.
Morrison previously asserted that there was a cooling trend since the LIA. But presented with a chart of the natural warming trend, he reversed his position. Classic cognitive dissonance. As Orwell describes it, “doublethink”: holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time. The classic alarmist mindset.
I would explain the null hypothesis to Dean, but I don’t want his head to explode.
Morrison is a conspiracy theorist who cannot provide evidence for his libelous claims.
Smokey – you seem to have picked two data series which suit your purposes and in doing so ignore the entirety of evidence not only from all the other available ice cores, but also evidence form the dozens of other proxies which all show unprecedented temperatures in recent times. I can’t say I recognise either of the data sets you cited – your the unreferenced figure you give for Vostok certainly doesn’t resemble anything published in a peer reviewed journal. What is your source for it? However that is of little import compared to the fact that you appear to have cherry picked to make your point. The temperature reconstructions published in the peer reviewed literature show that current global temperatures are unprecedented over a very long timescale. You might disagree with that, but it’s a fact. To prove me wrong you need to cite a global temperature reconstruction which is at odd with what I’ve said, not a couple of data points of your choosing.
I didn’t ‘assert there was a ‘cooling trend since the end of the Little Ice Age Smokey, for the rather obvious reason that I happen not to think that the ‘Little Ice Age’ was a global phenomenon. The peer-reviewed literature actually shows a slight downward trend going back one or two thousand years at least – until the latter part of the 1800’s. That trend is most marked in the reconstruction offered by McShane and Whyner, who actually hold a ‘sceptic’ position – so what I’m saying is unremarkable and shouldn’t really be controversial. If you are hostile to this evidence, I suggest you also take things up with those in your own camp who have interpreted the evidence this way and had success in getting their work published in a peer reviewed journal. The cognitive dissonance is all yours I think.
There really is no need to explain the null hypothesis to me Smokey, or to make derogatory remarks. If you feel you are in the position where the evidence supports your position, there should be no need for you to lower yourself to such a level to win the argument.
Tony,
You were the one who put great store on the individual records from early in the CET data, not me. However since you said:
“Of course if you take say 10 measurements of a single temperature point then there are ways of extracting a perfrectly meaningful result from it.”
– and of course if you take hundreds or thousands on a daily basis from many disperate locations you can get an even meaningful result from it. The quality of the data can give meaningful results with a much greater accuracy than ‘a degree’ and therefore you are conceding that the following statement you made was incorrect:
“Due to the many inconsistencies in the methods of measuring we can not get closer than a 1 degree temperature error and in many cases rather more than that. It is nonsense for anyone including Hansen to parse such poor records to tenths of a degree and produce this as scientific evidence of anything.”
I asked you why you mentioned that Jones had funding from Europe, and why you thought this was relevant. You don’t seem to have been able to answer. The European Union funds a lot of scientific research – is your point that they shouldn’t? Or does the fact the funding comes from the European Union somehow ‘taint’ the research? Or perhaps you meant something else? Could you explain please.
And yes – you’re right – the argument has effectively moved on. Now that Anthony and the others have admitted in a peer reviewed paper that the quality of US surface stations and urbanisation is not responsible for the upward trend in the global temperature record, we are able to move on to more important matters. I’m sure there will be some die-hards who will question Anthony’s research, and either try to pick holes in it or say that the US isn’t representative of the globe after all, but they really are flogging a dead horse. Apart from anything the satellite record confirmed the surface data long ago – and that includes the satellite data from UAH produced by the sceptics Christie and Spencer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_dataset
Not only do mainstream scientists think that the rise in global temperature is real, they have now been joined by Spencer, Christie and now Watts; who have replicated the work in peer-reviewed literature. The BEST analysis has been accepted by all sides as an agreed means of settling the matter – and of course the provisional results from that confirm the long-held mainstream position.
So, as you said, the argument is over, and science moves on.
Dean Morrison,
It is a fact that you cannot provide evidence for your false assertion that current temperatures are higher than during the last hundreds of thousands of years:
click1 [Greenland/Antarctica overlay showing a global effect]
click2
click3
click4 [from Law Dome, yet another ice core site]
click5
I have lots more charts all showing evidence that past temperatures exceeded current temperatures. Most use data that has been peer reviewed. Just ask, and I’ll post them for you. I doubt if you will ask, though, since they explicitly contradict your false belief that the current temperature is… the hottest evah!
You may now return to Skeptical Pseudo-Science and RealClimatePropaganda for more debunked talking points.☺
Dear Smokey,
those figures are pretty meaningless unless they are sourced to peer-reviewed work. Some of them show no sources of any kind. It is not sufficient for you to say they’ve used ‘data that has been peer reviewed’ – that is possibly the case but that does not mean that any subsequent treatment therefore also becomes ‘peer-reviewed’.
Could you reference the scientific papers they come from please, or am I to assume that they’ve been lifted from blogs of some kind?
In the meantime here is some recent peer-reviewed work:
Evidence that North Atlantic temperatures are unprecedented in at least the last 200 years:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/450.abstract
Evidence that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the last two decades are unprecedented in the last millennium:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2011.00002.x/abstract
Evidence that temperatures in Lake Tanganika are unprecedented since at least AD 500
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/abs/ngeo865.html
– and here’s one that’s very relevant to Anthony’s paper. There is good reason to believe that early methods of recording temperature has a systematic bias towards warmth – and therefore if anything the degree of global warming may have been underestimated because of the surface station record. If the Surface Stations project wishes to extend its remit to the rest of the world, then I hope that in the interests of impartiality they are are as interested in potential bias such as that described here, as any bias which may fit the narrative that global warming is exaggerated…
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g111046235jnv572/
Smokey writes,
“I have lots more charts all showing evidence that past temperatures exceeded current temperatures. Most use data that has been peer reviewed. ”
None of the five charts you linked come within a century of “current temperatures,” do they? So they essentially show past temperatures in Greenland or Antarctica exceeded those at the close of the Little Ice Age.
Gneiss,
It’s easy to show how wrong you are. Just look at the temperatures on the charts. The current very *mild* 0.7°C rise over the past century and a half doesn’t come close to past temperature rises.
The Minoan Optimum, the Holocene Optimum, the Roman Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period all exceeded today’s temperatures by between one and 3 degrees [and the previous interglacial was even warmer]. They are called “optimum” because warmer is better – cold kills. Only in the lunatic world of CAGW climate “science” do we find the preposterous scare stories about [evidence-free] runaway global warming.
# # #
Dean Morrison says:
“Could you reference the scientific papers they come from please, or am I to assume that they’ve been lifted from blogs of some kind?”
Obviously you’re thrashing around trying to find something to criticize. The data sources are right in most of the charts. Take a look.
Smokey writes,
“Obviously you’re thrashing around trying to find something to criticize. The data sources are right in most of the charts. Take a look. ”
Smokey, if you actually looked up the original papers by scientists, you could learn that (for example) the Greenland temperature reconstruction based on GISP2 which you’ve so often cited ends in the year 1855. The Little Ice Age.
I take it you couldn’t find any peer-reviewed work by scientists which supports your position Smokey, otherwise you’d have cited it.
I’m sorry – given the choice between the published and peer-reviewed work of the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists – reinforced now by this paper by Watts et al; and what appears to be your layman’s opinion based on your reading of partial and cherry-picked data – I’m afraid I have to go with the scientists. I’ve just been to visit a friend of mine this evening who is at death’s door in intensive care. He’s hooked up to every machine conceivable, and is receiving the close attention of consultants who have spent a lifetime dedicated to study of sick people and using the latest available scientific information to effect a cure. I’d rather put my faith in their expertise, and the track record of evidence based medicine, rather than listen to a hospital porter who says the entire medical profession is engaged in a grand conspiracy based on convincing people that patients like my friend are ill, when actually they are fine and dandy.
Perhaps you can see why I approach your claims with a similar degree of scepticism?
Poptech.
Still no response as to who I’m supposed to have libelled here…
You do realise that comments on this blog are moderated, and therefore Anthony takes responsibility for what is published here? If your suggestion is that I’ve libelled Anthony for some reason, I’m afraid you are quite simply wrong, because not only did Anthony allow my comments to pass moderation, but if he’d considered them libellous, he’d effectively have been responsible for publishing a libel against himself. Try getting that one through the law courts – even in the UK. If you think I’m responsible for libelling some other person, then I’m afraid then that Anthony would also be held responsible for publishing my comments. Since I don’t recall mentioning anyone else, except perhaps Pielke Sr, then I think that unlikely. As for the people involved in our discussion, since it would seem to be only myself and Richard Courtney who choose to post under their whole real name, rather than a pseudonym, I don’t think anyone here is in a position to say they’ve been libelled.
Of course the decent thing for you to do would be to withdraw the accusation if you don’t intend to back it up. However since you chose to make it whilst hiding behind a pseudonym, I can’t say I really expect that to happen. However this is the first time I’ve posted on this blog and I have to say I am a little disappointed in the approach of some of the commentators here, which doesn’t seem to be entirely serious, or in the spirit of a genuine interest in the science. Are such attitudes commonplace here, or have I pressed the wrong buttons or something?
Richard M writes,
“Dean Morrison is obviously in denial of basic facts. That puts him squarely in the TROLL category. Much of what he has posted so far is total nonsense. He either didn’t read the paper or ignores what is stated.”
That’s a lot of name-calling, Richard. And yet Dean is the one who has shown a knowledge of science here, and who has cited recent peer-reviewed studies in support of his points. Which of these are “total nonsense” or “in denial of basic facts,” Richard?
“Evidence that North Atlantic temperatures are unprecedented in at least the last 200 years:”
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/450.abstract
“Evidence that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the last two decades are unprecedented in the last millennium:”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2011.00002.x/abstract
“Evidence that temperatures in Lake Tanganika are unprecedented since at least AD 500”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/abs/ngeo865.html
“- and here’s one that’s very relevant to Anthony’s paper. There is good reason to believe that early methods of recording temperature has a systematic bias towards warmth – and therefore if anything the degree of global warming may have been underestimated….”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g111046235jnv572/
Gneiss says:
“Smokey, if you actually looked up the original papers by scientists, you could learn that (for example) the Greenland temperature reconstruction based on GISP2 which you’ve so often cited ends in the year 1855. The Little Ice Age.”
Old news, and if you ever put on your thinking cap on, you might finally understand that since your 1850’s reference point, the global temperature has risen only about 0.7°C. That still leaves current temperatures well below the MWP, the Holocene Optimim, the Roman Optimum and the Minoan Optimum.
Why is that so hard for you to understand? Current temperatures have been routinely exceeded in the recent geologic past. And CAGW has been debunked by the ultimate authority: the planet itself. If you don’t like what the planet is telling us, go on the internet and complain.
# # #
Dean Morrison says:
“I take it you couldn’t find any peer-reviewed work by scientists which supports your position Smokey, otherwise you’d have cited it.”
That statement is just non-factual hogwash like all your other alarmist gibberish.
The pointers to the peer reviewed papers are right in the charts, as I’ve patiently explained to you above. I’m not being paid to spoon-feed you what you can easily find with a simple search. eg: “R.B. Alley, climate”. There you go, junior. Have at it.
Now run along back to skeptical pseudoscience for the latest super-easy-to-debunk talking points.
Dean, Anthony is in no way responsible for your comments, made from your computer via your IP address. Having moderation turned on does not make him anymore responsible for what you choose to post.
You have libeled the reputable scientists in the other thread with false accusations you cannot back up,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/14/smear-job-by-the-carbon-brief/#comment-660565
Yeah sure you are all “disappointed” for posting libelous statements about reputable scientists and then getting called on it.
Ok everybody listen up, particularly Dean Morrison.
This is WAYYYYY OFF TOPIC – Further comments over this argument will be deleted. Be as upset as you like- Anthony
Smokey writes,
“Old news, and if you ever put on your thinking cap on, you might finally understand that since your 1850′s reference point, the global temperature has risen only about 0.7°C.”
So you believe that the temperature at Summit, Greenland has risen only 0.7°C, like HadCRU’s global index, since 1855? And that the central Greenland temperature anomaly in 985 represented the whole globe?
Gneiss,
Your first link concerns only the Arctic region around Svaalbard. That’s not global, is it?
Your next link uses tree ring proxies – a notoriously unreliable temperature proxy, as Mann and Briffa showed, to their public embarrassment. You want to show that tree rings corellate with temperature? No problem. You want to show that tree rings corellate with CO2? No problem. Take your cherry-pick.
There is no long term temperature proxy that comes close to the accuracy of ice cores, and the ice core evidence tells a completely different story.
Your next link? You really need to get up to speed, that was the paper that Willis Eschenbach debunked in Nature.
Your final link is once again a report on the Greater Alpine Region [GAR]. We’re debating catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Stick to the issue, instead of trying to move the goal posts by cherry-picking regions that seem to support your beliefs. The climate is different in different regions, and the climate is always changing somewhere. That’s why they’re called climate regions. See?
Gneiss,
Once again with the climate regions?
And there is corroborrating evidence from both hemispheres showing global temperature change.
Happy to be of service teaching you things you apparently didn’t know.☺